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Page 1: Military Resistance: Resistance 13L2 How …  · Web viewMilitary Resistance 13L2. To Declare War On “International Terrorism” Is Nonsense: “Politicians Who Do So Are Either

Military Resistance: [email protected] 12.xx.15 Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

Military Resistance 13L2

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Page 2: Military Resistance: Resistance 13L2 How …  · Web viewMilitary Resistance 13L2. To Declare War On “International Terrorism” Is Nonsense: “Politicians Who Do So Are Either

To Declare War On “International Terrorism”

Is Nonsense:“Politicians Who Do So Are Either Fools Or Cynics, And

Probably Both”“Terrorism Is A Weapon. Like

Cannon”“We Would Laugh At Somebody Who

Declares War On “International Artillery’”.

“Bombing Causes Destruction, Destruction Creates New Enemies Who

Thirst For Revenge. It Is A Direct Collaboration With The Terrorists”

There is no direct connection between IS terrorism around the world and the Palestinian national struggle for statehood.

But if they are not solved, in the end the problems will merge – and a far more powerful IS will unite the Muslim world, as Saladin once did, to confront us, the new Crusaders.

November 28, 2015 by Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom [Excerpts]

Terrorism is a weapon. Like cannon.

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We would laugh at somebody who declares war on “international artillery”. A cannon belongs to an army, and serves the aims of that army. The cannon of one side fire against the cannon of the other.

Terrorism is a method of operation.

It is often used by oppressed peoples, including the French Resistance to the Nazis in WW II.

We would laugh at anyone who declared war on “international resistance”.

Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military thinker, famously said that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”. If he had lived with us today, he might have said: “Terrorism is a continuation of policy by other means.”

Terrorism means, literally, to frighten the victims into surrendering to the will of the terrorist.

Terrorism is a weapon.

Generally it is the weapon of the weak.

Of those who have no atom bombs, like the ones which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which terrorized the Japanese into surrender.

Or the aircraft which destroyed Dresden in the (vain) attempt to frighten the Germans into giving up.

Since most of the groups and countries using terrorism have different aims, often contradicting each other, there is nothing “international” about it.

Each terrorist campaign has a character of its own.

Not to mention the fact that nobody considers himself (or herself) a terrorist, but rather a fighter for God, Freedom or Whatever.

(I cannot restrain myself from boasting that long ago I invented the formula: “One man’s terrorist is the other man’s freedom fighter”.)

*****************************************************************

Many ordinary Israelis felt deep satisfaction after the Paris events. “Now those bloody Europeans feel for once what we feel all the time!”

Binyamin Netanyahu, a diminutive thinker but a brilliant salesman, has hit on the idea of inventing a direct link between jihadist terrorism in Europe and Palestinian terrorism in Israel and the occupied territories.

It is a stroke of genius: if they are one and the same, knife-wielding Palestinian teenagers and Belgian devotees of ISIS, then there is no Israeli-Palestinian problem, no occupation, no settlements.

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Just Muslim fanaticism. (Ignoring, by the way, the many Christian Arabs in the secular Palestinian “terrorist” organizations.)

This has nothing to do with reality.

Palestinians who want to fight and die for Allah go to Syria.

Palestinians – both religious and secular – who shoot, knife or run over Israeli soldiers and civilians these days want freedom from the occupation and a state of their own.

This is such an obvious fact that even a person with the limited IQ of our present cabinet ministers could grasp it.

But if they did, they would have to face very unpleasant choices concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So let’s stick to the comfortable conclusion: they kill us because they are born terrorists, because they want to meet the promised 72 virgins in paradise, because they are anti-Semites. So, as Netanyahu happily forecasts, we shall “live forever by our sword”.

Tragic as the results of each terrorist event may be, there is something absurd about the European reaction to recent events.

The height of absurdiocy was reached in Brussels, when a lone terrorist on the run paralyzed an entire capital city for days without a single shot being fired. It was the ultimate success of terrorism in the most literal sense: using fear as a weapon.

But the reaction in Paris was not much better.

The number of victims of the atrocity was large, but similar to the number killed on the roads in France every couple of weeks. It was certainly far smaller than the number of victims of one hour of World War II.

But rational thought does not count. Terrorism works on the perception of the victims.

It seems incredible that ten mediocre individuals, with a few primitive weapons, could cause world-wide panic.

But it is a fact.

“It Is Almost Impossible For A Politician To Resist The Temptation To Ride On The Wave Of Panic”

Bolstered by the mass media, which thrive on such events, local terrorist acts turn themselves nowadays into world-wide threats. The modern media, by their very nature, are the terrorist’s best friend. Terror could not flourish without them.

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The next best friend of the terrorist is the politician.

It is almost impossible for a politician to resist the temptation to ride on the wave of panic. Panic creates “national unity”, the dream of every ruler. Panic creates the longing for a “strong leader”. This is a basic human instinct.

Francois Hollande is a typical example.

A mediocre yet shrewd politician, he seized the opportunity to pose as a leader.

“C’est la guerre!” he declared, and whipped up a national frenzy.

Of course this is no “guerre”. Not World War III. Just a terrorist attack by a hidden enemy.

Indeed, one of the facts disclosed by these events is the incredible foolishness of the political leaders all around. They do not understand the challenge. They react to imagined threats and ignore the real ones. They do not know what to do. So they do what comes naturally: make speeches, convene meetings and bomb somebody (no matter who and what for).

Not understanding the malady, their remedy is worse than the disease itself.

Bombing causes destruction, destruction creates new enemies who thirst for revenge. It is a direct collaboration with the terrorists.

It was a sad spectacle to see all these world leaders, the commanders of powerful nations, running around like mice in a maze, meeting, speechifying, uttering nonsensical statements, totally unable to deal with the crisis.

The problem is indeed far more complicated than simple minds would believe, because of an unusual fact: the enemy this time is not a nation, not a state, not even a real territory, but an undefined entity: an idea, a state of mind, a movement that does have a territorial base of sorts but is not a real state.

This is not a completely unprecedented phenomenon: more than a hundred years ago, the anarchist movement committed terrorist acts all over the place without having a territorial base at all. And 900 years ago a religious sect without a country, the Assassins (a corruption of the Arabic word for “hashish users”), terrorized the Muslim world.

I don’t know how to fight the Islamic State (or rather Non-State) effectively. I strongly believe that nobody knows.

Certainly not the nincompoops who man (and woman) the various governments.

I am not sure that even a territorial invasion would destroy this phenomenon. But even such an invasion seems unlikely. The Coalition of the Unwilling put together by the US seems disinclined to put “boots on the ground”.

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Indeed, if one is looking for an example of total disorientation, bordering on lunacy, it is the inability of the US and the European powers to choose between the Assad-Iran-Russia axis and the IS-Saudi-Sunni camp. Add the Turkish-Kurdish problem, the Russian-Turkish animosity and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the picture is still far from complete.

(For history-lovers, there is something fascinating about the reemergence of the centuries-old struggle between Russia and Turkey in this new setting. Geography trumps everything else, after all.)

It has been said that war is far too important to leave to the generals. The present situation is far too complicated to leave to the politicians. But who else is there?

Israelis Believe (as usual) that we can teach the world. We know terrorism. We know what to do.

But do we?

For weeks now, Israelis have lived in a panic.

For lack of a better name, it is called “the wave of terror”. Every day now, two, three, four youngsters, including 13-year old children, attack Israelis with knives or run them over with cars, and are generally shot dead on the spot. Our renowned army tries everything, including draconian reprisals against the families and collective punishment of villages, without avail.

These are individual acts, often quite spontaneous, and therefore it is well-nigh impossible to prevent them.

It is not a military problem. The problem is political, psychological.

Netanyahu tries to ride this wave like Hollande and company. He cites the Holocaust (likening a 16-year old boy from Hebron to a hardened SS officer at Auschwitz) and talks endlessly about anti-Semitism.

All in order to obliterate one glaring fact: the occupation with its daily, indeed hourly and minutely, chicanery of the Palestinian population.

Some government ministers don’t even hide anymore that the aim is to annex the West Bank and eventually drive out the Palestinian people from their homeland.

There is no direct connection between IS terrorism around the world and the Palestinian national struggle for statehood.

But if they are not solved, in the end the problems will merge – and a far more powerful IS will unite the Muslim world, as Saladin once did, to confront us, the new Crusaders.

If I were a believer, I would whisper: God forbid.

MORE:

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San Bernardino:[One More Time]

“Individual Terror Is Inadmissible Because It Belittles The Role Of The

Masses In Their Own Consciousness; Reconciles

Them To Their Powerlessness”“The Police Repression Grows

More Savage”“If We Oppose Terrorist Acts, It Is Because Individual Revenge Does

Not Satisfy Us”“The Account We Have To Settle With The Capitalist System Is Too Great”

Comment T

The article below may be a useful reminder of the futility of individual terrorism.

It was written against terrorism practiced by anarchist political tendencies who thought killing this or that politician would serve some useful purpose.

It is not directly on point with current events in Paris.

Those attacks were not conducted by anarchists, but by stupid cowards.

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Cowards for choosing as their target unarmed civilians, rather than any part of the political leadership or armed departments of the government, which is even now sending troops on assorted Imperial missions in the Mid-East.

As the article below discusses, even a less cowardly choice of target would still have been futile, useless, pointless; demoralizing forces fighting for human liberation.

And stupid for failing to care how their attack will play into the hands of the Imperial government, opening the door for even more police repression everywhere in general, and even more police repression in particular against all those who reactionary regimes and politicians choose to label “Islamic.”

There are already howls from politicians demanding further repression.

The stupid cowards who conducted the attack serve our enemies.

They, and the oligarchs who now control every society on earth, without exception, are twisted mirror images of each other: brainless, deadly, reactionary, without honor or common decency, no longer serving any useful purpose, and overdue for extinction.

***************************************************************************************

By Leon Trotsky; Originally published in German in Der Kampf, November 1911

Our class enemies are in the habit of complaining about our terrorism.

What they mean by this is rather unclear.

They would like to label all the activities of the proletariat directed against the class enemy’s interests as terrorism.

The strike, in their eyes, is the principal method of terrorism. The threat of a strike, the organisation of strike pickets, an economic boycott of a slave-driving boss, a moral boycott of a traitor from our own ranks—all this and much more they call terrorism.

If terrorism is understood in this way as any action inspiring fear in, or doing harm to, the enemy, then of course the entire class struggle is nothing but terrorism.

And the only question remaining is whether the bourgeois politicians have the right to pour out their flood of moral indignation about proletarian terrorism when their entire state apparatus with its laws, police and army is nothing but an apparatus for capitalist terror!

However, it must be said that when they reproach us with terrorism, they are trying—although not always consciously—to give the word a narrower, less indirect meaning.

The damaging of machines by workers, for example, is terrorism in this strict sense of the word. The killing of an employer, a threat to set fire to a factory or a death threat to

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its owner, an assassination attempt, with revolver in hand, against a government minister—all these are terrorist acts in the full and authentic sense.

However, anyone who has an idea of the true nature of international Social Democracy ought to know that it has always opposed this kind of terrorism and does so in the most irreconcilable way.

Why?

‘Terrorising’ with the threat of a strike, or actually conducting a strike is something only industrial workers can do. The social significance of a strike depends directly upon first, the size of the enterprise or the branch of industry that it affects, and second, the degree to which the workers taking part in it are organised, disciplined, and ready for action.

This is just as true of a political strike as it is for an economic one. It continues to be the method of struggle that flows directly from the productive role of the proletariat in modern society.

In order to develop, the capitalist system needs a parliamentary superstructure. But because it cannot confine the modern proletariat to a political ghetto, it must sooner or later allow the workers to participate in parliament. In elections, the mass character of the proletariat and its level of political development—quantities which, again, are determined by its social role, i.e. above all, its productive role—find their expression.

As in a strike, so in elections the method, aim, and result of the struggle always depend on the social role and strength of the proletariat as a class. Only the workers can conduct a strike. Artisans ruined by the factory, peasants whose water the factory is poisoning, or lumpen proletarians in search of plunder can smash machines, set fire to a factory, or murder its owner.

Only the conscious and organised working class can send a strong representation into the halls of parliament to look out for proletarian interests.

However, in order to murder a prominent official you need not have the organised masses behind you.

The recipe for explosives is accessible to all, and a Browning can be obtained anywhere. In the first case, there is a social struggle, whose methods and means flow necessarily from the nature of the prevailing social order; and in the second, a purely mechanical reaction identical anywhere—in China as in France—very striking in its outward form (murder, explosions and so forth) but absolutely harmless as far as the social system goes.

A strike, even of modest size, has social consequences: strengthening of the workers’ self-confidence, growth of the trade union, and not infrequently even an improvement in productive technology.

The murder of a factory owner produces effects of a police nature only, or a change of proprietors devoid of any social significance.

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Whether a terrorist attempt, even a ‘successful’ one throws the ruling class into confusion depends on the concrete political circumstances. In any case the confusion can only be shortlived; the capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues to function.

But the disarray introduced into the ranks of the working masses themselves by a terrorist attempt is much deeper.

If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle?

If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organisation?

If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party?

Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?

In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.

The anarchist prophets of the ‘propaganda of the deed’ can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise.

The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education.

But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen.

And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy.

The efforts of reaction to put an end to strikes and to the mass workers’ movement in general have always, everywhere, ended in failure. Capitalist society needs an active, mobile and intelligent proletariat; it cannot, therefore, bind the proletariat hand and foot for very long.

On the other hand, the anarchist ‘propaganda of the deed’ has shown every time that the state is much richer in the means of physical destruction and mechanical repression than are the terrorist groups.

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If that is so, where does it leave the revolution? Is it rendered impossible by this state of affairs? Not at all.

For the revolution is not a simple aggregate of mechanical means. The revolution can arise only out of the sharpening of the class struggle, and it can find a guarantee of victory only in the social functions of the proletariat. The mass political strike, the armed insurrection, the conquest of state power—all this is determined by the degree to which production has been developed, the alignment of class forces, the proletariat’s social weight, and finally, by the social composition of the army, since the armed forces are the factor that in time of revolution determines the fate of state power.

Social Democracy is realistic enough not to try to avoid the revolution that is developing out of the existing historical conditions; on the contrary, it is moving to meet the revolution with eyes wide open. But—contrary to the anarchists and in direct struggle against them—Social Democracy rejects all methods and means that have as their goal to artificially force the development of society and to substitute chemical preparations for the insufficient revolutionary strength of the proletariat.

Before it is elevated to the level of a method of political struggle, terrorism makes its appearance in the form of individual acts of revenge.

So it was in Russia, the classic land of terrorism. The flogging of political prisoners impelled Vera Zasulich to give expression to the general feeling of indignation by an assassination attempt on General Trepov. Her example was imitated in the circles of the revolutionary intelligentsia, who lacked any mass support. What began as an act of unthinking revenge was developed into an entire system in 1879-81. The outbreaks of anarchist assassination in Western Europe and North America always come after some atrocity committed by the government—the shooting of strikers or executions of political opponents.

The most important psychological source of terrorism is always the feeling of revenge in search of an outlet.

There is no need to belabour the point that Social Democracy has nothing in common with those bought-and-paid-for moralists who, in response to any terrorist act, make solemn declarations about the ‘absolute value’ of human life.

These are the same people who, on other occasions, in the name of other absolute values—for example, the nation’s honour or the monarch’s prestige—are ready to shove millions of people into the hell of war.

Today their national hero is the minister who gives the sacred right of private property; and tomorrow, when the desperate hand of the unemployed workers is clenched into a fist or picks upon a weapon, they will start in with all sorts of nonsense about the inadmissibility of violence in any form.

Whatever the eunuchs and pharisees of morality may say, the feeling of revenge has its rights.

It does the working class the greatest moral credit that it does not look with vacant indifference upon what is going on in this best of all possible worlds.

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Not to extinguish the proletariat’s unfulfilled feeling of revenge, but on the contrary to stir it up again and again, to deepen it, and to direct it against the real causes of all injustice and human baseness—that is the task of the Social Democracy.

If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us.

The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister.

To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction.

MILITARY NEWS

Marine Who Warned Colleagues In Afghanistan Of Coming Insider

Attack To Be Kicked Out Of Marines:

Involuntary Discharge “Obvious Retaliation”

“Brezler’s Fears Proved Well-Founded Two Weeks Later When An Insider

Attack In Helmand Province Claimed The Lives Of Three Marines”

December 2, 2015 By Gina Harkins, Staff writer; Marine Times

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A lawyer for a Reserve Marine being forced out of the Marine Corps for mishandling classified information vowed to appeal the Department of the Navy’s decision to uphold the involuntary discharge, calling it “obvious retaliation.”

In a case that gained widespread notoriety, Maj. Jason Brezler, a civil affairs officer who had returned stateside, shared classified information with colleagues in Afghanistan in 2012 in an attempt to warn them about a suspected Taliban conspirator.

Brezler’s fears proved well-founded two weeks later when an insider attack in Helmand province claimed the lives of three Marines.

Michael Bowe, the lawyer representing Brezler, told Marine Corps Times they learned via email Monday of the decision to uphold the separation. The decision, first reported by The Washington Post, was made by Scott Lutterloh, the acting assistant Navy secretary for manpower and reserve affairs.

Made official on Nov. 24, the decision comes more than three years after Brezler was investigated for sending a classified document from a personal email account.

Bowe said they will continue arguing Brezler’s case in a civilian federal court.

He contends that senior Marine commanders retaliated against his client after Brezler sought the support of his congressman, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

The lawsuit states that Brezler was sent to a 2013 board of inquiry in retaliation for his protected communications with King, and that the proceeding failed to comply with due process.

“He was talking to his congressman about embarrassing misconduct the Marine Corps did not want anyone discussing,” Bowe said.

“That obvious retaliation is illegal and we are confident the federal court will overturn this action on that and other equally compelling grounds.”

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York will now consider their challenges to Brezler’s separation, Bowe added. A Marine spokesman said it’s not immediately clear how the pending federal lawsuit will affect Brezler’s discharge.

Despite having had backing from members of Congress and top military leaders during his December 2013 board of inquiry, Brezler was found to have mishandled classified information.

It was recommended that Brezler, a New York City firefighter, be honorably discharged from the Corps.

The email Brezler sent that prompted the investigation was meant to alert Marines in Afghanistan about Sarwar Jan, a corrupt Afghan police chief believed to have ties to the Taliban.

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About two weeks later, the three Marines were killed when one of Jan’s “teaboys” — a personal servant — gunned them down on a Marine outpost. Killed in the attack were Staff Sgt. Scott Dickinson, 29, Cpl. Richard Rivera, 20, and Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley, 21.

The attacker was sentenced to about seven years in an Afghan prison, which is the maximum sentence for a minor there.

The Buckley family, unsatisfied with the information provided by the Marine Corps leading up to that trial, filed their own lawsuit in the Eastern District Court of New York. Bowe said the court denied the government’s motion to dismiss that case

Iraq’s Prime Minister Says “They’re Capable Of Defeating The Islamic State Without The

Help Of Foreign Combat Troops”

Al-Abadi Said His Country Needs Training, Weapons And Advice “Rather Than ‘Foreign Ground

Combat Forces Fighting On Iraqi Soil’”

Al-Abadi’s Statement “Came Hours After U.S. Defense Secretary Carter Told Congress That A New Special Operations Force Will Be Deployed

To Iraq”

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“The Force Could Total Hundreds Of Troops, Including Assault Teams,

Aviation Units And Other Support Units”

December 2, 2015 By Sinan Salaheddin, The Associated Press [Excerpts]

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister has defended his country’s security forces, saying they’re capable of defeating the Islamic State group without the help of foreign combat troops.

Haider al-Abadi’s statement late Tuesday came hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress that a new special operations force will be deployed to Iraq to help in the fight against IS. The militant group controls a wide swath of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

“Iraqi special operations and anti-terrorism forces are playing an important role in the fight against Daesh terrorist gangs and proved their capability in targeting Daesh leaders and carrying out dangerous missions to retake vital areas,” al-Abadi said, referring to the IS group by an alternative name.

Al-Abadi said his country needs training, weapons and advice from the international community rather than “foreign ground combat forces fighting on Iraqi soil.”

Carter told the House Armed Services Committee that over time, the special operations force will be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture IS leaders.

He said the number in the new expeditionary force would be more than 50. It would focus on helping Iraq defend its borders and build its security forces, but also be in position to conduct unilateral operations into Syria.

According to a U.S. official, the force could total hundreds of troops, including assault teams, aviation units and other support units.

It would likely be based in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s self-ruled northern Kurdish region. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to publicly discuss military planning.

Carter said the force might be American-only, but more likely would be mixed with Kurdish troops or others who are fighting the militants. He said the new force would conduct operations similar to two from earlier this year.

In October, U.S. special operations troops and Iraqi forces raided a compound in northern Iraq, freeing about 70 Iraqi prisoners who were facing execution. One U.S. service member was killed in the raid, the first American combat death in Iraq since the U.S. began its campaign against IS in August 2014.

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“Japan’s Government Has Violated The Rights Of Okinawa’s

Residents For Decades By Allowing A Heavy Presence Of

American Troops”“The Start Of A Legal Battle Over

Plans To Relocate A U.S. Air Base”“Many Residents Want The Base Moved Out And Have Picketed The Area, Trying

To Prevent Construction Equipment From Entering”

December 2, 2015 By Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

TOKYO — Japan’s government has violated the rights of Okinawa’s residents for decades by allowing a heavy presence of American troops on the tiny southern island, Okinawa’s governor told a court hearing Wednesday, the start of a legal battle over plans to relocate a U.S. air base.

The dispute over the air base escalated into a legal battle after Japan’s government filed a lawsuit against Okinawan Gov. Takeshi Onaga, seeking to overturn his cancellation of an earlier local approval for land reclamation needed for the base’s relocation.

The long-stalled plan would move the U.S. Marine Air Station Futenma from a densely populated neighborhood to the island’s seaside Henoko Bay.

But many residents want the base moved out of the prefecture and have picketed the area, trying to prevent construction equipment from entering.

Onaga said in court Wednesday the lawsuit is not just about the legality of his revocation of the land reclamation approval, but about democracy and Okinawans’ human rights, according to the text of his statement.

About 74 percent of the space used by the U.S. military in Japan is concentrated on Okinawa, which is only 0.6 percent of Japan’s land area.

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“Do local autonomy and democracy really exist in Japan? The current national security forces the burden (of hosting U.S. bases) on Okinawa alone. Is it normal? I want to ask all Japanese people,” he said at the hearing, held in Okinawa’s prefectural capital of Naha.

Onaga noted that following Japan’s defeat in World War II, U.S. occupation forces confiscated land from residents on Okinawa, and that the island was under U.S. occupation until 1972, 20 years longer than the rest of Japan.

He said Okinawans’ will is still neglected, now by Japan’s government.

Onaga was elected last year, widely supported by voters who feel Okinawa bears an unfair burden of the U.S. military presence.

His anti-base stance has also made residents of Okinawa, an island with a distinct culture, more aware of their identity.

Tetsuya Takahashi, a University of Tokyo professor and expert on the Okinawa base issue, said the lawsuit underscores Tokyo’s “colonial-style” approach to Okinawa and could only deepen the divide.

“The central government is apparently waiting for Okinawans to give up, but they won’t. The dispute could even escalate,” he said.

Lawyers representing the central government said Onaga’s cancellation of the earlier approval is illegal, arguing that his action would prolong the risk from the Futenma base and harm Japan-U.S. relations and Tokyo’s national interests, according to Kyodo News agency.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters in Tokyo that Onaga’s predecessor had properly issued the reclamation approval. “It is extremely regrettable we had to go to court,” he said.

Some critics of the landfill plan also object to potential environmental damage to the previously undeveloped Henoko shore.

Television video showed hundreds of people — clapping and shouting “Onaga, Onaga” — gathering outside the courthouse Wednesday morning hoping to be among the dozens of observers to get a seat inside.

Tokyo briefly suspended the reclamation work earlier this year while seeking a compromise with Onaga, but has since overridden local objections to resume the work.

“U.S. Army Forcefully Separating For Misconduct

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Service Members Diagnosed With PTSD Or TBI”

“Many Soldiers Will Not Receive ‘Crucial’ Retirement, Health Care

And Other Benefits”“May Discourage Service Members

From Seeking Medical Help”“Easier To Discharge Service Members

For Minor Misconduct Than Evaluate For Medical Discharge”

December 3, 2015 By Michelle Tan, Staff writer; Army Times

The Army will conduct a “thorough, multidisciplinary review” in response to a call from a group of 12 senators to investigate reports that the service discharged for misconduct as many as 22,000 soldiers who had been diagnosed with mental health problems.

“We strive to have a process that is fair, objective and deliberate, and that ensures due process and the maintenance of good order and discipline within the ranks,” Acting Army Secretary Eric K. Fanning wrote in a letter to Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

National Public Radio in October reported that the Army, since 2009, has separated 22,000 soldiers for misconduct after they returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and had been diagnosed with mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury.

Murphy and 11 fellow senators called on the military to investigate the allegations in a Nov. 4 letter to senior Army leaders.

“We are troubled by recent allegations that the U.S. Army is forcefully separating for misconduct service members diagnosed with PTSD or TBI,” they wrote. “We are concerned that it may be easier to discharge service members for minor misconduct — possibly related to mental health issues — than to evaluate them for conditions that may warrant a medical discharge.”

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As a result, they said, many of these soldiers will not receive “crucial” retirement, health care and other benefits. These actions also may discourage other service members from seeking the medical help they need, the lawmakers said.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

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“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

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“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.”

Frederick Douglass, 1852

A revolution is always distinguished by impoliteness, probably because the ruling classes did not take the trouble in good season to teach the people fine manners.-- Leon Trotsky, History Of The Russian Revolution

War Banks And LobotomiesFrom: Dennis SerdelTo: Military Resistance NewsletterSent: December 13, 2013Subject: War Banks and Lobotomies

Written by Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade; United Auto Workers GM Retiree

****************************************************************

war banks and lobotomies

broken people broken liveschopped up like hamburger hillsfound in all the wars making bad decisionstrying to be like someone else living beyond the tearsin a world where wrong is right& is taught that way in schoolsfull of twisted history where young minds are open& mark a multiple answer on a testwith their best guessbecause the broken people broken livesof their elders are never heard as the young walk downa land mined path full of lies& not even given a chance to sort it outall by themselves instead the rockets flybullets buzz by their earsdust & filth is everywhere anda small country is horrifiedchildren’s lives are brokenbroken people everywherestunned by blood their parents deadthey are taken to an orphanage& all the high talk on the newsis a political game with false truth on christmas day

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where the people try to buyitems that move up their life’s statusthat the rich already have& religion falls on the deaf ears of the eliteand they think it’s funny when the people prayand then run up their credit cardswhile the truth lies under christmas trees becausematerialism is what it’s all aboutbecause yachts, new cars & four castle homesaround the world can not fit under a christmas treethe proletariat have to be contentwith a $800 laptop bought for $200waiting in the snow at 5am on black fridayfor their youngest boy that will flip out manyof the kids at school in awebut every day is Christmas for the richas they vault away money from warsfrom the mortgages that take 30 yearsto pay off private property that the bank’s ownjust in time to retire & die slowly from workas the discontent bury their faces in the Biblethe paranormal & get rich gold tricksbuy 12 Lotto ticketsthat act like lobotomies for the american peoplewhile a stern Pakistani man can’t stop the tearrolling down slowly from his eyeto his beard as he stares atthe dead remains of his family

Written by Dennis Serdel for Military Resistance

Donald Sutherland Explains The Real Meaning Of Hunger Games:

“War Is For Profit”“It’s For The Profit Of The Top 10%”

November 28, 2015 Posted by By Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project

Donald Sutherland:

“If there’s any question as to what it’s an allegory for I will tell you.

“It is the powers that be in the United States of America.

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“It’s profiteers.

“War is for profit. It’s not ‘to save the world for democracy’ or ‘for king and country’”

“No, bullshit.

“It’s for the profit of the top 10%, and the young people who see this film must recognize that for the future ‘blind faith in their leaders,’ as Bruce Springsteen said, ‘will get you dead.’”

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December 1, 2015 The Onion

Over 150 world leaders are meeting in Paris this week to address the global effects of climate change in the hopes that a unified international effort can avert grave future consequences for the planet.

Here are the major goals of the Paris climate talks:

Pledge to create one new ecosystem for every ecosystem destroyed by climate change

Provide aid to help developing island nations transition into fully underwater economies

Make shortlist of species actually worth saving at this point

Give every world leader nice little non-binding agreement to take back to country as small keepsake

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Destroy the livelihood of 47-year-old Indiana coal miner and father of four Kevin O’Riley

Finalize battle lines for when water wars begin

Conceive of, design, and develop reliable, affordable, carbon-neutral source of clean energy capable of powering entire world before conference concludes next Friday

Provide political cover for next round of fossil fuel subsidies

Settle on scapegoat nation to pin blame on in the event of a worst-case scenario

Find most rhetorically effective way to push problem onto next generation

Above all to have fun, meet new people, and forge friendships that will last a lifetime

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Russian Truckers, Irate Over New Toll Money Going To Oligarch,

Block Roads Near Moscow:“Their Larger Anger Was Reserved For The Government’s Failure To

Alleviate The Devastating Effects Of Inflation And Recession Over The

Past Year”“What We See Now, The Situation With The Truckers, Is The First Rumble Of

Thunder Somewhere Far Away”

DEC. 4, 2015 By NEIL MacFARQUHAR, New York Times

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MOSCOW — Hundreds of long-distance truckers blocked a lengthy section of the ring road circling the capital on Friday to protest a new national toll, in the first sign that Russia’s economic woes might be eroding the broad support for President Vladimir V. Putin’s government.

The direct object of their ire was Igor Rotenberg, the scion of a billionaire oligarch clan close to Mr. Putin, who owns half of a new, GPS-based system that, when fully operational, will charge truckers fees on all federal highways.

Their larger anger, however, was reserved for what they called the government’s failure to alleviate the devastating effects of inflation and recession over the past year, prompted by the steep drop in oil prices, sanctions the West imposed over Ukraine and retaliatory sanctions the Kremlin imposed on Western food imports.

“There is no economic program at all — where is all the money?” said Vladimir Romanov, 65, the part-owner of a small Moscow trucking firm with three 18-wheelers. “The country is very rich, yet we live like hell.”

The Russian economy is deeply troubled and shows few signs of escaping from its rut, at least as long as prices for oil and other commodities remain depressed. Inflation is running at 15.6 percent and the economy has shrunk nearly 4 percent in the last year.

The ruble has lost about half its value against the dollar, and foreign reserves were hovering around $366 billion, compared with $419 billion a year ago.

While that should mean hard times for everyone, some analysts say something else is at work.

Given the shrinking oil revenue and the economy, they say, the Russian elite is seeking new revenue streams even at the expense of the middle class.

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Truckers gathering on the northern side of Moscow on Friday. Some analysts see the road tax as part of an effort by the Russian elite to gain revenue streams at the expense of the working class. Credit James Hill for The New York Times

“At a time when the pie is shrinking, the clans are trying to keep their portion or even expand it,” said Nikolai Petrov, a professor at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.

The privatized toll system creates a new income source, he noted, but it will cause friction.

The truckers are widely dispersed and hence difficult to control, and their sentiments reflect those of the entire middle class, Mr. Petrov said. “They feel that the government is trying to fix budgetary problems by increasing taxes and taking money out of their pockets,” he said.

Under the new system, drivers must buy a tracking device and pay according to their mileage. An 800-mile round trip between Moscow and St. Petersburg costs an extra $33 at current exchange rates and will rise to $66 next March.

Truckers said that the new toll amounted to about 10 percent of their revenue for each trip, and that it came on top of other hefty transportation taxes, sharply reducing their monthly wages of around $500 to $600.

The government argues that the trucks cause significant road wear and says the tolls will generate more than $700 million a year to pay for maintenance. “This is how a transportation system functions worldwide,” Maxim Y. Sokolov, the transportation minister, told state television this week.

Truckers mocked the idea that the toll money would end up being invested in Russia’s notoriously poor roads.

“They have already increased taxes on fuel and promised to cancel the transportation tax, but they have only increased it,” said Vladimir Deryugin, 51, whose truck sat among roughly 20 lined up in an Ikea parking lot in Khimki, a small city on the northern edge of Moscow.

A few bore signs saying “No to Platon!” — the Russian acronym for the system. Police cars had blocked all entrances and exits to the lot.

“The Closest Thing To Large-Scale Political Protests That Russia Has Seen Since The Professional Classes Took To The Streets Of Moscow In 2011”

The demonstrations-on-wheels are the closest thing to large-scale political protests that Russia has seen since the professional classes took to the streets of Moscow in 2011 and 2012 to oppose the way Mr. Putin returned to the presidency for a third term.

That movement was centered in the narrow world of the Moscow and St. Petersburg intelligentsia.

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The truck drivers are the kind of bedrock Russians for whom Mr. Putin has long been a hero. And even as they railed about the new tolls and the economy, they retained a certain reluctance to criticize the man himself.

“Our president was duped,” Mr. Romanov said. “He signed without thinking. His friends duped him. The son studied in Britain, then he came back. He needs to earn money. So Rotenberg comes to the president and tells him: let the son earn money.”

The new toll system is operational only in the Moscow region for now, but since that is such a national hub it has already elicited protests across the country, including in the Dagestan republic, in the cities of Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk, in Smolensk in eastern Russia, in Yekaterinburg in the central Urals, and in St. Petersburg.

One trucker from distant Vladivostok commented on social media that he wanted to join the demonstrations but that the roads were so bad it would take him 12 days to make the cross-country trip.

Some analysts consider the protests proof that what is widely called the “television” — government propaganda about Russia’s rising status in the world — is losing its edge over the “fridge,” or economic problems.

“The reserves are not limitless,” said Alexander Auzan, the economics dean at Moscow State University, speaking on Dozhd television.

“What we see now, the situation with the truckers, is the first rumble of thunder somewhere far away.”

The government evidently hopes to ride out the protests, which went unreported on the main state-run television news channel.

The police were the first line of defense, establishing checkpoints on the outer reaches of the capital to block access to the MKAD, the major ring road circling the city. If that becomes paralyzed, traffic backs up all across Moscow.

The police tried a number of strategies to thwart the protesters.

They declared some drivers drunk, truckers said, allowing them to suspend their licenses for 24 hours.

Sometimes the police “discovered” a mechanical problem making the vehicle unfit to drive. Some drivers were forced to sign pledges that they would not join any protest. Eventually the police settled for corralling the trucks into one six-mile section of the road and diverting other traffic.

The city of Moscow announced on Friday that it would have to limit traffic the city center in December to prepare for the Victory Day parade — which is held in May.

The state Duma, or Parliament, has tried to mollify the protesters, lowering the fines for noncompliance and limiting the penalty to one fine per day.

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The Putin administration itself repeatedly offered dialogue and compromise in the form of graduated tariffs, but the truckers are demanding the tolls be scrapped entirely. Mr. Putin himself has not commented publicly on the protests.

His spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters that it was not a presidential matter but an issue for the ministry of transportation.

Truckers like Mr. Romanov said that support for Mr. Putin — whose approval ratings have been above 80 percent ever since he annexed Crimea in March 2014 — has dropped universally among drivers forced to pay the new tax.

There has been some online chatter and some public discussion about whether the anger was enough to spark a Maidan, the protests in central Kiev that brought down the government of neighboring Ukraine in early 2014.

Mr. Romanov said that the drivers had no such thing in mind, and that they only wanted to earn a living.

“We don’t need a Maidan here, we don’t need any extremism,” he said. “We are normal people without political demands. We just don’t want the government to get into our pockets.”

Some of those watching had other ideas. All across Moscow, the movement of the trucks circling the city was being monitored on various social media, inspiring a lively stream of criticism and support.

“Why only the ring road?” said one, “Why not Red Square?”

DANGER: CAPITALISTS AT WORK

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“America’s 20 Wealthiest — A Group That Could Fit In One

Gulfstream G650 Luxury Jet —Own More Wealth Than The

Bottom Half”Such Massive Inequality Reflects

Not Market Economics But Political Influence:

Government “Policies That Take From The Many And Redistribute To

The Already Rich Few”“Ask Yourself Just Why You Are Paying

Taxes To Enhance Their Fortunes”

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December 2, 2015 by David Cay Johnston, Al Jazeera America. [Excerpts]

David Cay Johnston, an investigative reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize while at The New York Times, teaches business, tax and property law of the ancient world at the Syracuse University College of Law. He is the best-selling author of “Perfectly Legal,” “Free Lunch” and “The Fine Print” and the editor of the new anthology “Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality.”

***************************************************************************

A report out today provides a powerful image that will help people understand how extreme concentration of wealth has become in America — an issue at the core of our economic, political and social woes over the past 35 years.

“America’s 20 wealthiest people — a group that could fit comfortably in one single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet — now own more wealth than the bottom half” of Americans, according to the report, by Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, both veteran analysts of inequality in America.

But there’s a big problem with that memorable image: It seriously understates just how much wealth these 20 people have.

Probably just 12 or 15 of those at the top own as much as America’s worst-off 160 million people. That’s about $732 billion on each side of that equation. For the top 20, it averages $36 billion each; for the bottom half, $4,575 each.

Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, provided nearly half the contributions to the presidential candidates in both parties, though giving was heavily skewed to Republicans.

The result is policies that take from the many and redistribute to the already rich few through stealth techniques that rarely make the news but can be found in the public record.

Among these policies are a failure to enforce the laws of business competition, severe restrictions on unions and subsidies galore for big companies.

Five years ago, the 400 households reporting the largest incomes on their tax returns captured an astonishing 6 percent of all the increased income in America, as I revealed a year ago.

Such massive inequality reflects not market economics but political influence that tilts the economic playing field.

And because of their political influence, those at the very top get tax favors, especially the deferral of taxes into the distant future, which transforms the burden of taxes into a bonanza of increased profits.

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If you wonder why Washington doesn’t seem to fix problems that affect most Americans, this is the answer: Politicians take care of the hands that feed them, the donor class.

Wealth at the top is much more concentrated than Collins and Hoxie report, because we have only weak and incomplete measures of wealth. And we let people choose how to value their wealth.

Is an asset worth what was paid for it (known as basis) or its value after depreciation or its fair market value today? A smart owner picks basis when dealing with tax appraisers but market value when seeking loans.

We let people simultaneously pose as poorer to the taxman and wealthier to their bankers.

The Collins and Hoxie analysis of top wealth was based on the latest Forbes 400, a promotional vehicle for America’s leading wealth-porn magazine. I devour every issue — and not just to feast my eyes on its charticles.

But the Forbes list is based mostly on disclosures about publicly traded stock, largely ignoring investments in other stocks and bonds as well as many other side businesses owned by those at the top.

Over the years, I have interviewed more than a dozen people whose wealth should put them on the Forbes 400 list, on the basis of public records on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission and at county courthouses, where land title, divorce and other records are often filed. None of these people have ever been mentioned in Forbes, however, in any article.

The list would be different if Forbes had a way to get at more privately held companies, analyzed more real estate records or could get a peek at the brokerage accounts of the superwealthy (or in some cases the banks they own).

“Ask Yourself Just Why You Are Paying Taxes To Enhance Their Fortunes”

Counted or not by Forbes, the billionaires gather up mountains of dividends, royalties, interest and capital gains each year, making their wealth snowball apart from the companies they are best known for leading.

Forbes 400 leaders such as Bill Gates (No. 1) and Larry Ellison (No. 3) have sold huge amounts of stock over the years and used it to buy other assets not counted in the Forbes listings.

Gates’ second fortune is owned through his Cascade Investments LLC, which has large stakes in a more than a dozen big companies, including a major military boat builder, the Four Seasons luxury hotel chain and Republic Industries, a trash-hauling company. Forbes counts Gates’ second fortune, but those of many others are not so obvious.

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Consider Warren Buffett, perennial No. 2 on the Forbes list of richest Americans. Forbes’ latest list shows his wealth as the value of his stake in Berkshire Hathaway, the Omaha, Nebraska, holding company that pays him a $100,000 annual salary.

But when Buffett disclosed data from his 2010 income tax return, it showed $62.8 million of income. More than $40 million of it was long-term capital gains and dividends, yet Buffett sold no Berkshire Hathaway shares, and the company pays no dividends. That tells us he has a second large fortune apart from Berkshire Hathaway.

He deducted about $16 million in investment interest, suggesting leveraged assets of perhaps $800 million, assuming he can borrow at 2 percent.

And he benefits from a host of laws that let him borrow from the government at zero interest, charge monopoly prices and even turn taxes embedded in the monthly bills of his electric company customers into cash that never gets to government, juicing his fortune at your expense.

The truth is that Buffett’s wealth is much more than the value of his Berkshire Hathaway stock. And government policy helps make it grow and grow.

So think about that image — a top-of-the-line Gulfstream G650 jet and 160 million Americans, each with the same net worth.

Now imagine a much smaller jet, with 12 or so oligarchs, and ask yourself just why you are paying taxes to enhance their fortunes instead of your nest egg.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

“Measures Police And Security Forces Have Taken With Family Members Since Oct. 1 Go Much

Further Than Simple Questioning”

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“The Families Of Individuals Have Become The Target Of Israeli

Crackdowns”“‘Detaining Family Members, This Is A New Thing,’ Citing Both Detention

Of Attackers’ Families As Well As Relatives Of Palestinian Youth”

“Around 2,000 Palestinians Landing In Israeli Jails Over The Last Two Months”

“DEC. 3, 2015 By: Emily Mulder, Maan

BETHLEHEM -- A constant stream of people filter into the Hebron branch of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, climbing up a dimly-lit stairwell of the nondescript office building tucked into the folds of the occupied city.

Musa sits in the chair opposite the office secretary. “I’m trying to find my son,” he says, beginning a conversation that has been repeated by bleak-faced family members in the same room hundreds of times before.

“I think he’s in Ofer but I don’t know if they transferred him,” he continues, referring to an Israeli detention center in the West Bank.

The secretary opens one of dozens of binders that lay beside her, flips to the file of Musa’s son, and phones someone with access to information on his whereabouts.

After a brief exchange of identification numbers and dates, the secretary hangs up the phone and hands Musa her card. “Call us back later today, he’s finding out.” A group has now gathered at the entrance of the prisoners’ society office, mostly fathers.

They represent a fraction of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank awaiting news on loved ones recently detained by Israeli military forces.

The number of those detained has skyrocketed since Oct. 1, with around 2,000 Palestinians landing in Israeli jails over the last two months, according to prisoners’ rights group Addameer.

The detentions are one of several policies implemented by Israeli authorities in an attempt to quash an escalation of youth demonstrations as well as attacks by individual Palestinians on Israeli military and civilians.

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Mass arrest campaigns are usually carried out following attacks.

Palestinians expect them. Despite the normalcy that accompanies arrest raids, Abed Alaal Alanani, the West Bank director of the Palestinian Prisoner’s’ Society, told Ma’an that the last two months have marked a noticeable change in how detentions are being carried out.

During the Second Intifada, Israel would often target Palestinian political groups who were responsible for orchestrating attacks on Israeli interests. The majority of attacks since Oct. 1, however, have been carried out by individuals who have no background of “security violations” with Israel, and no strong political affiliation.

Because no political group is taking responsibility for attacks, Abed said, the relationship between Israeli security forces and Palestinian families is shifting: Instead of punishing political groups, the families of individuals have become the target of Israeli crackdowns.

“It’s a big problem for the Israelis,” Abed told Ma’an. “Why? Because in general all of the people that make problems with the Israelis now are not going to do so by an order of their political committee. This is different from the Second Intifada.”

The lack of political backing or organization of recent attacks has, in effect, pitted Israeli security establishment against individual Palestinians and their families, Abed said.

Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told Ma’an that police, “as part of ongoing investigations,” often become involved with the family members of the perpetrator following an attack.

“After every attack, it’s important to understand how they (the attacker) arrived to the area, how they made their way to the scene,” Rosenfeld said.

“Sometimes, members of the families are questioned.  We go into the houses to see what different materials there are that the terrorist had access to. We also look on computers and access their social network accounts to see what the person was involved with before the attack.”

Murad, a legal assistant at Addameer, told Ma’an that the measures police and security forces have taken with family members since Oct. 1 go much further than simple questioning.

“Detaining family members, this is a new thing,” he told Ma’an, citing both detention of attackers’ families as well as relatives of Palestinian youth who participate in demonstrations against Israeli forces.

“They (Israeli forces) have to show something. They have a responsibility as security forces to show Israeli society that they are doing something to save their (Israeli) lives.“They punish the family, because they need to put the responsibility on the shoulders of someone,” Murad told Ma’an.

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Where Palestinian political leadership is absent to channel the sharp edges of Israeli action following attacks, Palestinian families have been left to bear the brunt.

Rather than acknowledging the ongoing military occupation, Murad said, Israeli authorities are exercising collective punishment -- illegal under international law -- on innocent relatives in attempt to exert pressure on families to stop activity against Israel.

Mass detention hasn’t been the only measure implemented by Israeli forces against Palestinian relatives to those involved in demonstrations or attacks.

Amjad a-Najjar heads the prisoners’ society in Hebron, the largest city in the occupied West Bank and site of nearly a third of recent detentions. He points to Israel’s withholding of bodies of Palestinians who were killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis as one example of the direct Israeli affront on families.

The practice was initially used during the Second Intifada to punish orchestrators of attacks when suicide bombings made it impossible to punish those who actually carried out the attacks, as well as to prevent funerals-turned-nationalistic events.

Israel’s revamping of the temporarily-lost practice ignited the Hebron area last month. Dominated by a handful of major family names, the refusal to return one body rippled across the city, defaming hundreds outside of the immediate family of the killed attacker, Amjad told Ma’an.

Meanwhile, Israel has increased demolition of homes belonging to the families of Palestinians who perpetrate attacks, revoked the residency for Jerusalem families related to the suspects, and sealed Palestinian villages and towns following attacks since October.

In some ways, Amjad sees as a good thing the disintegration of political affiliation and accountability that he says potentially influenced Israel’s increased policies of collective punishment.

Amjad -- who spent ten years in Israeli prison for involvement with the Fatah party -- said that in the past, political affiliation posed as a deterrent for many from gaining common ground against the Israeli occupation.

“Before...not all people were political. I’m with Fatah, but my brother didn’t care to learn about the Fatah movement. He didn’t get involved.”

“Now,” Amjad said, “Israel has taken all of the people to Intifada...it’s an entirely different situation. They have no focus….they are instead punishing everyone.”

While Hebron is unique, Abed told Ma’an he sees something similar occurring across the occupied territory. “It’s not about the Fatah organization, or Hamas organization...When one person is killed, the families want to take action. It’s between Israel and individual families.”

To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation commanded by foreign terrorists, go to:

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http://www.palestinechronicle.com/The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves “Israeli.”

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

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